"Down below the roaring forties,
I am gonna fly some sorties.
So you best reserve that cherished window seat."
Jimmy Buffett from Party at the End of the World.
Well as expected the skies brightened just as I was schedulated to leave Ushuaia. Maybe I can get down here here again some day but I'm glad I took this opportunity despite the bad weather. My chest was still hurting from my faux pas but I enjoyed the flight from Ushuaia to El Calafate. Lots of snow capped peaks and glaciers below. My destination was sparked by the desire to see the Perito Moreno Glacier. Also there was a slim chance at Spectacled Duck and Magellanic Plover.
I arrived at noon and picked up my rental car. The Nissan Versa had a simple, normal manual transmission with a logical sequence of gears. It was a pleasure to drive after that dreadful Toyota Yaris. My Air B&B was not going to be available for a few hours and I had chosen it because it was close to the Reserva Laguna Nimez. The entrance fee of 4000 pesos seemed a bit steep but it was good for a week so I was happy to pay it.
(I guess I would be remiss if I failed to talk about the US dollar to Argentine peso exchange rate. People complain about inflation in the USA but it is northing compared to what is going on in Argentina where the current rate of inflation is about 150% per year. Basically this means pesos are losing value every day compared to American dollars. As of the time of my visit, the official exchange rate was 350 pesos to the dollar. This is the rate at banks and ATMs. It was 300 to the dollar just a few months earlier when I bought my airfair. So the key to saving your money if you live in Argentina is to buy American Dollars and hide em in your matress. This has driven the black market rate for the US dollar to 700 pesos per dollar for crisp new $100 dollar bills with the blue stripe. They are called "blue dollars." So my entrance fee to Laguna Nimez for me was less than $6 but for locals would be about $11. It's a good time to visit Argentina if you come armed with crisp new $100 bills and don't mind buying pesos from the local black market dealers.)
Reserva Laguna Nimez consists of several shallow lakes surrounded by Patagonian grasslands near the shore of Lake Argentina. I had walked just a few meters down the trail when I found my first life. Long-tailed Meadowlark.
A few meters more and I found this lifer Scale-throated Earthcreeper looking and acting much as a thrasher, a good example of parallel evolution. They are members of the neotropical family Funariidae which includes ovenbirds, spinetails, foilage gleaners and more. The day before I had seen the White-breasted Treerunner and Thorn-tailed Rayadito which are also funariids at Tierra del Fuego National Park.
A flock of Brown-headed Gulls flew laps around the lake. Illuminated by the afternoon sun I could see the head was not black like our Laughing and Franklin's Gulls.
I had missed Coscoroba Swan at Costanera Sur so I was glad to find a few at Laguna Nimez.
I flushed a few pipits who flew up from the grass with white outer tail feathers like our Sprague's Pipits. Eventually I found one mousing through the grass. I think the pale braces on the back identify this one as the common Correndera Pipit and not the more rare Helmayr's Pipit.
Patagonian Mockingbird is not that different from the Chalk-browed Mockigbird.
A fence separted the reserve from the shallow lagoon on Lake Argentina where a flock of Chilean Flamingo fed. A few days later I would do some exploring on the mudflats.
Pairs of Upland Geese with white males and brown females were scattered around the reserve.
Noisy Southern Lapwings were also common.
The pleasant sunny and reltatively warm afternoon was a nice change from frigid Tierra del Fuego.
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